College and Schools.
Next to John Black's desire for the spiritual good of the people among
whom he labored, was his anxiety for the education of the young. Born in
Scotland, where to be illiterate is looked upon as disgraceful; brought
up under teachers in the parish school, who had a real love of knowledge
and whose joy it was to select from their pupils every "lad of pairts";
afterwards well trained in a higher institution in New York State; and
having finished his course in Canada at a time when a new educational
impulse led to the founding of Knox College, the pastor of Kildonan
could scarcely fail to be
AN EDUCATIONIST.
His bent of mind constantly showed itself in his desire to help forward
promising youths. It was not enough to him that the parish school of
Kildonan should be the best in the Red River Settlement. He took those
who were looking forward to professional life, and in his own study
drilled them in the Latin and Greek classics, with which he was so
familiar. A number of the Kildonan lads went on to higher positions,
led in their earlier stages by his kindly hand.
Higher educational facilities were not wanting to Kildonan, for upon the
borders of the parish, and beside the very church where until 1851 the
fathers of the Kildonan people had attended public worship, was St.
John's College. Here a good education was given, and, so far as known to
the writer, there were no restrictions placed upon those students who
were not members of the Church of England; but John Black desired to
mould the leaders of the Presbyterian people after a fashion to preserve
the best traditions of the race from which they sprang.
The small number of people in the Red River Settlement, and their
remoteness from highly civilized life, was for a time an objection to
the founding of another college on the banks of the Red River. Now,
however, the vista of hope was opening out before the country, as a new
province was entering on its career as one of the Canadian sisterhood.
The Kildonan school reached the culmination of its excellence during the
years 1870 and 1871 under the direction of Mr. David B. Whimster, a
teacher from western Ontario. The attendance was large, the educational
interest was great, and a goodly number of the best pupils were being
instructed in Latin and French by Mr. Black. Now seemed the time for
carrying out the dream which the Kildonan pastor had long cherished.
THE COLLEGE PLANNED.
In the autumn of 1870, the very year in which the young province of
Manitoba was born, a provisional board of twelve of the leading
Presbyterians of the province signed a prospectus and circulated it
through the province inviting assistance for an institution to give a
training in Classics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Natural History, Moral and
Mental Philosophy, and the Modern Languages. We may certainly say there
was no restricted view in the minds of the founders of the infant
college. Early in 1871, £300 sterling had been subscribed on the Red
River, and before the meeting of the General Assembly material for the
new building had been secured and the building was expected to be
sufficiently advanced for use in the autumn of the year.
The General Assembly met that year in Quebec, and the Rev. William
Fletcher, a commissioner from Manitoba, strongly presented the case for
the new college.
THE ASSEMBLY DECIDES.
As usual "some doubted," but the Assembly entered with spirit upon the
project, and after certain negotiations the writer was appointed to go
to Manitoba and lay the foundations of the new institution. He was
ordained for the work in Gould Street church, Toronto, in company with
Dr. MacKay of Formosa, and pushed on to reach Manitoba before winter.
After a long and toilsome journey, in October the writer arrived at Red
River, and looks back with pleasure to the first night spent in company
with John Black at Kildonan manse. The Rev. William Fletcher and the
writer on arriving at Fort Garry could find no accommodation in the
crowded hotel in Winnipeg, and accordingly they walked down the four
miles or more to the manse on a pleasant autumn evening.
The Apostle of the Red River, with a mass of iron gray hair, as shown in
his portrait, with well marked and yet kindly face, and his Dumfrieshire
Doric, not yet displaced by forty years of absence from his native
moorlands, was in high spirits. So often had the people of Red River
seen those coming to them foiled in their plans by the too early
approach of winter that their fears had been awakened lest another
disappointment would reach them. But the journey had been made, and now
the pioneer, whose tastes had always remained scholastic and literary,
even in the remote solitudes of the west, saw one of his strongest
anticipations about to be realized. He spoke of the youths ready to go
on with their work, of the numbers coming into the country, of the
bright prospects of the Church, and the value of education as a factor
of national growth. Late into the night all phases of the subject were
discussed and plans laid for immediately beginning work.
MANITOBA COLLEGE BEGUN.
A few days afterward the provisional board met, and the name "Manitoba
College" was adopted for the new institution--a name which has meant
much in the educational development of the western prairies. On November
10th, 1871, classes were opened, and the work immediately took hold of
the minds and hearts of the Presbyterian people of the country, and of
many others as well. The first building was of logs covered with siding,
and so Manitoba College while not emulating the fame of the log college,
out of which great Princeton College grew, yet has a similarity in its
first housing and surroundings. The cut on page 130 gives a view of the
first college building at Kildonan, with the Kildonan church in the
background.
In the year following the opening of the college the staff was
strengthened by the arrival of the Rev. Thomas Hart, B.D., who was the
representative of the Church of Scotland in Canada. Professor Hart came
under an arrangement with the Church of Scotland Synod to take part in
the educational work, and has in the quarter of a century since his
coming labored with unwearied diligence for the good of the college. The
co-operation of the two branches of the Church in college work three
years before the union of the Churches proved the advisability of the
scheme of union, and was the harbinger of that event which has been such
a blessing to religion throughout the Dominion of Canada.
REMOVAL TO WINNIPEG.
The college steadily progressed for two sessions, when an event took
place which seriously tried the stability and attachment to principle of
the Presbyterians of the country, more especially of the people of
Kildonan. This was nothing less than the proposed removal of the
newly-founded college from Kildonan to Winnipeg. There can be no doubt
that this was one of the most trying things to Mr. Black in his whole
experience. Kildonan was four or five miles distant from the rising
capital of the province. Three miles nearer the city than Manitoba
College stood St. John's College. The Methodist Church had opened an
academy in the heart of Winnipeg, and the disadvantages of fair
development under which Manitoba College lay at Kildonan were manifest.
The matter came up in the Presbytery of Manitoba, and the scheme
favorable to beginning work in the provincial centre was carried by the
casting vote of the Moderator. It was naturally a great grief to the
people of Kildonan, and especially to their earnest pastor. To see the
longed-for tree of knowledge so speedily plucked up by the roots seemed
to the good old pioneer unnatural and uncalled for. And yet it was the
struggle between reason and sentiment. The good of the institution
itself and the plan to be adopted for its greatest usefulness must be
the highest considerations. The matter was necessarily taken to the
General Assembly. Mr. Black had not intended to be present that year at
the General Assembly, but at the wish of Kildonan itself went in order
that he might give the view of the people against the removal of the
college. All who were present at that Assembly will remember the address
of the valiant representative. With singular clearness and the highest
dignity, though with deep emotion, he recounted the struggles of the
people of Kildonan, the sacrifices they had made for the Church and
country, the hopes that had been awakened, and the damage it would do
the college among the relatively small number of Presbyterians yet
settled in the country. The Assembly was deeply impressed by the appeal
of the devoted and unselfish advocate. The writer recalls the fact of
one of the most respected pillars of the church, Hon. John McMurrich,
coming to him privately and saying, "I quite agree with the argument in
favor of removing the college to the rising town, but it does seem hard
that after all the struggles of the faithful pioneers of Presbyterianism
on the Red River, and especially after the devoted and self-sacrificing
life that John Black has lived, that there can be found no way in which
their wishes may be gratified." There was not a member of the General
Assembly who did not feel in the same way as good old John McMurrich.
But it was a critical moment in the history of northwestern
Presbyterianism. To have hesitated at that time would have been to take
up the same movement in a few years again with the added difficulty of a
falling cause and a sense of failure.
DEPUTATION SENT.
The Assembly acted with extreme caution and discernment in the matter. A
commission of two of its members, Drs. Ure, of Goderich, and Cochrane,
of Brantford, the former an old fellow-student and warm friend of Mr.
Black, was appointed to visit Manitoba and report upon the case. The
commission decided that after a year the college should be removed to
Winnipeg, and carry on its whole work there. This was naturally a great
disappointment to Mr. Black. He was not convinced by the decision, and
feared especially that hurt would be done the college among the old
settlers of the country. He quoted in confirmation of his opinion the
statement made by the Bishop of Rupert's Land, the head of St. John's
College, that the removal was a mistake.
In this John Black, to his own surprise and happiness also, found
himself mistaken. The Kildonan people, to their infinite credit, stood
true to their principles and in the next and succeeding years, numbers
of their young men were educated in their own college in Winnipeg,
notwithstanding their feeling of disappointment at the loss of the
college. Acting in the same manner as he had done when his views were
not carried out in regard to the policy of managing the Prince Albert
mission, the true-hearted Presbyterian pastor still gave his unwavering
support to the college, and for several years when the college undertook
the instruction of a small band of theological students, came, in
company with Dr. Robertson, at considerable inconvenience to himself,
and unrewarded except by the gratitude of the board and the high
appreciation of the students, to deliver lectures in church history of
which he was so complete a master. It was with the deepest appreciation
of his scholarship and high character that the Board of Manitoba
College congratulated him in 1876, when the sister institution in the
Church, Queen's College, conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity upon
the one who had been the originator and strong supporter of general and
theological education among the Presbyterians of the western prairies.
THE UNIVERSITY ESTABLISHED.
The college continued to grow and, after the union of 1875, obtained a
building of its own in the northern part of Winnipeg. It became in 1877,
along with the Church of England College of St. John and the Roman
Catholic College of St. Boniface, a part of the University of Manitoba,
which was established in that year. From the first it took the lead in
the University of Manitoba, and to-day has upwards of one hundred and
eighty graduates in Arts. Dr. Black was among the earliest
representatives of the college on the council of the university. The
needs of the college became so great that in 1881 the beautiful college
building represented in the accompanying cut was erected at a cost of
$40,000. The Marquis of Lome laid the corner stone of the new college.
Dr. Black lived to see the erection of the building, but passed away too
soon to witness its occupation in the autumn of 1882.
The difficulties of the college were many during these early years. As
has been said, "this part of its history was the period of uncertainty,
and of many sleepless nights for its professors. Eleven or twelve years
of no visible means of support, of inevitable friction, arising from the
necessary change from Kildonan to Winnipeg, of an utterly insufficient
staff for undertaking the university work in which it early took part,
and of its professors each weighted down with as much missionary work
as an ordinary missionary, to enable them to gain remuneration from the
Home Mission Committee--these were the struggles of development with
which the young organism grew into strength." No one was more
sympathetic than John Black in encouraging the professors in their toil.
During its whole history Manitoba College has been a missionary centre
for the west. The authorities of the college have always been anxious to
make the college in every way useful to the Church. Its professors have
taken a very active part in the home mission work and Indian missions,
and its students have been strongly possessed with the missionary
spirit. Before the college had the status of a theological college, in
co-operation with the Presbytery of Manitoba, it gave instruction to
students in theology with the approval of the General Assembly. In the
year following that of the death of Dr. Black, Manitoba College was
granted a regular theological department, and this part of the college
work has been well organized and maintained under Dr. King and Professor
Baird. No less than 81 graduates in theology have left the walls of the
college between 1878 and the present time (1897). In token of its
absorbing interest in home mission work, Manitoba College has willingly
placed itself at the service of the Church in conducting a summer
session in theology, for the better supply of the mission stations of
the synods of Manitoba and British Columbia. Dr. Black would have
greatly rejoiced, could he have seen the present prosperity of the
institution for which he prayed and labored so long.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
The change made by the first parliament of Manitoba from the
denominational schools formerly prevailing to a system of public
schools was a very striking one. The desire of the Roman Catholics to
have separate schools for themselves was granted, and thus the germ of
the great question which has for years disturbed Manitoba was
introduced. Those, who in the old Red River Settlement days had been
accustomed to their parish schools, were not seriously opposed to the
separate school system. To them it seemed simply a more systematic way
of working their parish schools, and receiving the assistance of a
government grant. Dr. Black thus became the representative of the
Presbyterian parishes and was a member of the first Board of Education
for the province. Matters worked with a fair amount of smoothness, but
there was a constant grasping of power by the Roman Catholic hierarchy
to make a greater and greater division between the two sections of the
board, until in ten years after the formation of the province the Roman
Catholic schools were to all intents and purposes managed privately by
the Catholic section of the board, and the Roman Catholic Archbishop
recognized as the authority by whom, for his own section, all books in
religion and morals should be approved. Protests in the newspapers, in
political campaigns and otherwise were made against this gradual
aggression on the part of the Roman Catholics.
ACTION TAKEN.
The Protestant section of the board at length took action in the matter.
A series of resolutions were passed on Oct. 4th, 1876, by a majority of
the section, looking toward the doing away of separate schools. The
matter promised to bring on a great agitation in the country, and Dr.
Black ceased to be a member of the board, though Rev. Dr. Robertson,
who was also a Presbyterian representative on the board, held with the
majority and ardently approved of the national school ideas. Dr. Black
in this matter felt that he could not be a party to interfere with the
amity between Protestants and Roman Catholics, which had been a feature
of the old days of the Red River Settlement. While he probably differed
little from the other members of the board as to what should be done,
yet his strongly expressed desire to be freed from the personal turmoil
and discussion of this difficult question was regarded, and the burden
thrown on younger men.
THE GOVERNMENT INTERFERES.
The Provincial Government of the time became alarmed at the action of
the Protestant section of the board, and took the strong measure of
reconstituting the board at the time of next appointment. Some of the
more aggressive members were replaced by others of a more pacific
character and the crisis was thus postponed. Dr. Black's anticipations
of the reality of this struggle were by no means mistaken. For several
years the question slumbered, with, in 1881, a new aggression on the
part of the Roman Catholics, making the two systems more distinct and
maintaining the share of joint stock company assessments, which were
almost entirely those of Protestant stockholders, _pro rata_ for Roman
Catholic schools. Dr. Black's fears of trouble were soon to be realized,
for after ominous rumblings, on the incoming of a new government, in a
few years the educational change took place (1890), giving rise to what
has been widely known throughout the world as the "Manitoba School
Question." Dr. Black died a number of years before this reformation came
about.